Text Size

STANDING UP FOR THE CHAIRMAN: As House Republican leadership moves toward a new 18-month transportation bill, Transportation and Infrastructure Chairman John Mica has gotten some blame for why an earlier five-year, $260 billion version fell apart. But committee Republicans are sticking up for their chairman as the finger-pointing continues. Some freshmen who feel their priorities weren’t addressed have privately criticized Mica’s process for assembling the bill, but committee members are publicly backing him. “The chairman’s done a great job on this. In the last two highway bills the economy was good, the trust fund was flush. And we had earmarks,” Railroads Chairman Bill Shuster said. “This is like the chairman going into a fight with both hands tied behind his back.”

Even when speaking anonymously, members stuck up for Mica but acknowledged complaints are out there. “I’ve heard some other people who are frustrated — wish it would have gone differently, felt like they couldn’t get responses back for things that are important in their areas. For us that hasn’t been the case,” a GOP committee member told MT.

GOP leadership has tried to blame Mica, saying he wrote a flawed bill and didn’t properly vet it before the big unveil. But Mica — publicly at least — has done everything leaders have asked of him, from writing a bill that cut spending by 30 percent as mandated by last year’s Paul Ryan budget to backing a five-year measure that links energy production to infrastructure spending. He still wants a bill longer than 18 months, but Mica’s statements haven’t criticized leaders as they try to chart a path forward. Team MT brings you the full story: http://politi.co/wAamKP

Changing lanes: Republicans are mulling the use of billions in savings from changes to federal employee pension contributions to fund the measure, as first reported by Transportation Nation (http://bit.ly/zQHnUB). “The remainder of the pension reform piece is being considered,” a GOP aide told MT. That’s far more than the $10 billion or so needed to fund the shorter bill, which will let Republicans argue they don’t leave the Highway Trust Fund broke as Mica has frequently said the Senate bill would do. But targeting pensions is sure to enrage House Democrats (especially in Maryland and Virginia) who were already opposed to the earlier version.

PAGING DR. BOEHNER: Earlier Wednesday, Mica said the revised House bill is “on life support” and that he woke up at 2 a.m. Wednesday worried about the options facing leadership. The chairman opened the door for another extension but stopped short of making more news after seeing Adam and other reporters furiously tapping at their keyboards: “There’s possibility of a shorter-term extension. There are a whole host of possibilities. You know, I’ve got some of the press here, if I say something — look at them, they’re already typing away.” Adam has more for Pros: http://politico.pro/wiXR5U

Mica outtakes: The chairman continues to hit the transit community for wanting to keep its dedicated share of gas tax money: “The public transportation people, even though we set up a separate fund and gave them five years’ funding, they threw their toys out of the playpen and said no, that this is unacceptable. They want to be in the fund that’s slowing diminishing. That’s the security that they’ve sought.” He also said the committee’s Amtrak privatization and competition proposal won’t be part of the overall transport measure, but joked that he might as well include it since the bill has so many problems already: “I’ve told you before and I’ll tell you again: Don’t plan to put in a controversial rail proposal, though maybe I should just dump that in too.”

‘Totally separate’: Fellow Floridian GOP Rep. Sandy Adams told MT the brewing primary battle between Mica and her in Florida will not affect her position in the transportation debate. “That’s totally separate from anything that’s being done with this legislation,” Adams said. “I make my decisions based on what’s in the actual language of the bill.”

ENOUGH ABOUT THE HOUSE ALREADY: Ahead of a Thursday vote on Roy Blunt’s “conscience” amendment (slated for 11 a.m.) to the Senate’s two-year transportation bill, Majority Leader Harry Reid threatened to file cloture on the bill if Republicans continued to press for unrelated amendments. “Yesterday I had to bring up a Republican amendment that they didn’t even bother to file, they just wanted to talk about it and hold press conferences on this issue,” Reid said before the Senate adjourned last night. Blunt’s amendment has effectively tied up the upper chamber for weeks since he first offered it.

GOP leader John Thune told MT in an interview that this all could have been avoided.

“If Sen. Reid were to allow this to be brought up as a freestanding bill and they could get that vote it’d be different,” Thune said. “But the Senate’s the Senate; there’s going to be a certain amount of nongermane amendments and they may be tough votes for people but that’s the way it’s supposed to work here.”

Amy Klobuchar said unrelated amendments are common in the Senate, but in this case, do no favors to a surface transportation bill butting up against a March 31 deadline. “It often happens but it would be a lot simpler to just focus on surface transportation,” Klobuchar told MT.

Thune also said efforts by committee leaders to improve the Finance and Commerce titles of the $109 billion transportation package will pay off in the form of bipartisan support. The Finance/Commerce/Banking title is currently pending to the transportation bill, but action on it probably will not happen until next week. “They’re definitely better. When we defeated cloture on the original Commerce title and Finance title, … I think it improved it. Now we have some provisions on there that are supported by both sides,” Thune told MT.

More on amendments: The Sierra Club wrote members of Congress yesterday urging them “to support amendments that will further reduce oil consumption” and “oppose amendments that would increase pollution, deepen our reliance on oil and keep our transportation system mired in the past.” Read the letter: http://bit.ly/wCOpQt

BRIDGING THE EARMARK DEBATE: The House votes today on a bill to grant environmental clearance for the Stillwater Bridge between Minnesota and Wisconsin. It’s under suspension of the rules, meaning two-thirds of the chamber has to sign off. It has the support of local lawmakers, but House Transportation’s top Democrat Nick Rahall is using an interesting strategy to drum up opposition. He told MT that Michele Bachmann is trying to convince fellow Tea Party Caucus members that it’s not an earmark — but the earmark-supporting Rahall will counter that by voting for the bill. Rahall said he would “educate them … on the floor about what’s an earmark and what’s not an earmark.” Mr. Rahall, your vote for the bill sends a message... “That it’s an earmark, because I’m for earmarks!” an excited Rahall interrupted. “So unless they can convince me it’s not, which they’ll try, that’s their whole argument that it’s not an earmark. And I’m voting yes.”

Supporters lifted: After watching debate on the Stillwater Bridge Act, a pro-bridge lobbyist emailed to say the supporters’ case was “compelling” and called opponents of the bill “petty.” “It was actually a little inspiring to see a bipartisan coalition working together to solve a problem, and we are very proud of them all.”

BRING IT BACK: A bipartisan sextet from Illinois is using the House transportation stall to push the restoration of parity between pre-tax transit and parking benefits. As of Jan. 1, the benefit maxes out at $125 a month for transit and $240 for parking — a frustrating tax hit to representatives with public transportation users. Republicans Randy Hultgren, Judy Biggert, Robert Dold along with Dems Dan Lipinkski, Bobby Rush and Mike Quigley have signed on to a letter to Ways and Means and Rules committee leaders asking for a manager’s amendment to end “a policy that hurts businesses that are doing the right thing by providing their employees with transportation alternatives.” The pols are hoping to drum up more support the rest of this week. The letter: http://bit.ly/AalPxp

AIRPORTS WANT RECOGNITION FROM LAWMAKERS: In response to U.S. airlines’ push to secure a national air travel policy, the nation’s airports instead prefer a “new aviation policy.” Airports Council International-North America prez Greg Principato told reporters Wednesday during a presentation of airports’ economic impact “the purpose of the air transportation system is not profit for airlines … it’s moving products and moving people.” And D.C. doesn’t take into account how important airport investment is — which means the next big legislative push has to be in more than three years. “We really need to pay attention to what we do for our next FAA authorization,” said the Chamber’s lead transportation lobbyist Janet Kavinoky, who added that current law doesn’t empower airports to raise sufficient revenue. And NextGen is on everybody’s minds, Principato said, and it affects airports too: “A lot of times when we talk about air traffic control modernization, we talk about what the benefit is to the FAA, what the benefit is for airlines. Airports are left out of the equation.”

CRUISE SHIPS, PART TWO: The Senate Commerce Committee looks into cruise ship safety with a hearing today, a day after a House panel held a similar hearing. “We’re likely to focus on environmental issues, safety and the ability of ship owners to avoid paying taxes,” a Commerce aide said. That’s at 10 a.m. in 253 Russell. More info: http://1.usa.gov/yShiGv

LATE IS THE NEW ON TIME: NRDC federal transportation policy director Deron Lovaas, giving a wide view of how long previous transport bills took even when times were better: “First of all, just to inject some context into this discussion: These bills are rarely passed on time. TEA-21 took almost a year, and SAFETEA-LU took almost two. And those were debated when the revenue pie was expanding as opposed to the chronic shortfalls now afflicting the program.” National Journal blog: http://bit.ly/zAJsvu

POL TO METRO — TRANSFER AD TO THE DUMPSTER: NoVa Rep. Jim Moran wants Metro to stop facilitating attacks on the president and to take down an ad in the Clarendon Metro which tells Barack Obama to “go to hell.” Moran to GM Richard Sarles: “This ad is deeply disrespectful of the President of the United States and does not belong” in a public transportation station. More from POLITICO’s Joanne Kenen: http://politi.co/z5pQ6M

THE COUNTDOWN: Highway and transit policy runs out in 31 days, DOT funding in 213 days and FAA policy in 1,309 days. There are 250 days before the 2012 election. It's been 883 days (and eight extensions) since SAFETEA-LU expired.

THE TRANSPORTATION TICKET: Earl Blumenauer at the HSR conference: “In the day, there was a notion that there were actually three parties in the House: Republicans, Democrats and the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.”

** A message from AAA: The time is now for Congress and President Obama to take bipartisan action and deliver on a transportation bill that makes America stronger and keeps the economy, and the American people, moving into the future. Transportation will continue to be a key element to maintaining economic vitality and quality of life as an advanced, mobile, connected and growing population searches for modern solutions to meet mobility needs. Modernizing our national transportation system, which is vital to our economy, motorists’ safety and quality of life must be a priority again. Tell Congress to act: www.MakingAmericaStronger.AAA.com **